10 Greatest ‘Legacy Of The Beast’ Set Songs From Iron Maiden
3. The Number Of The Beast
Number Of The Beast is the infamous title track from Iron Maiden’s groundbreaking 1982 third album, and one of their most notorious songs. At the time of the release, the band were looking to crack the American market and were starting to make a serious name for themselves as they toured across the US.
However, the title of The Number Of The Beast and its satanic undertones caused a whole lot of controversy, with Christian groups taking the tongue-in-cheek theme seriously and somewhat missing the entertainment point of Heavy Metal. Subsequently, Maiden would see mass protesting at their shows as they were labelled as Satanists who were going to corrupt the American youth.
Still, Number Of The Beast remains another live classic to this day, with the nefarious spoken word intro - "Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six" - never failing to cause euphoria in the crowd.